Well, I decided to go against all good and simple advice of taking my jon boat to a professional welder and decided to try my own hand at fixing a few little holes....well at least one used to be little.

I looked around at various rods for patching aluminum and decided on HTS-2000. The video made it look like a snap, like how could anything possibly go wrong? I bought a mapp/O2 gas bottle setup and went to work on my first little hole on the top edge/ rail of the boat.

Everything was going according to plan at first. I heated the aluminum hot enough to make the rod melt and was almost able to fill in the hole....almost. I almost had the hole filled when part of the railing decideds to catch fire right next to the hole I was try to fill in. I pulled the torch away from the hole to blow out the little fire (glue from old carpet grass) and of course the metal cooled down too much and the rod wouldn't melt so i couldn't fill the rest of the hole. I proceede to heat the area back up and i guess i had the tip of the torch too close or held it there too long because before you know it the little screw hole started getting bigger. I not being the type to know when to leave well enough alone i thought, hey i can still fix this...NOT!! I only sucedeed in making a little screw hole large enough to stick in entire pinky finger in!!

For all of the money (50$ torch setup, 20$ HTS rods) I could have just taken the dang thing to a professional and got in done right the first time and they only charge 60$ an hour. > Now i have to worry about if they can even fill the stupid hole i made (since it's half filled with that stupid rod) or if i'll have to use some type of putty now.

The moral of the story is to know your limitations. It cheaper in the long run to just have someone who knows what they are doing take care of it right the first time. Now I still have to pay a professional and am already out of 70$ and am sure will be out of at least another $60

When you take it to the welder, you make want to bring some sheet aluminum the same or close to the same thickness as the boat.  It will probably be ok, but using patches on both sides or one side and then filling in the hole will probably work better.   Aluminum is a ***** to tig weld, and now you know.  Ands its even harder to oxy weld.  

I feel your pain man. I have been paying for everything all my life. I cant fix anything. I try and make things worse. ;D

Lesson learned?  POST FIRST!!!!

We could have helped you avoid this.  I would PM Matt 5.0 and ask what you should do from here.  He's an ACES welder and will steer you right.

Good luck!!

You gotta learn when to hold 'em, learn when to fold 'em and learn when to hire a pro.  I'll give you credit for trying but man, welding aluminum is not easy.  

Generally, if I've got to learn an entire new skill set for a one -time job it's time to haul out the yellow pages.

Yah, i'll second that motion. I guess that DIY attitude got the best of me this time. Lesson learned!

I can only hope that painting will go more smoothly than this did. I should have better luck with that since I have an experienced painter in my corner, not to mention free use of a high volume low velocity paint rig.

I'll eventually post some pics of the project once I get a little more work done. Right now it's just a stripped down to nothing old tub.